It is well known in the vehicle washing industry to perform various automated steps during the vehicle washing process as the vehicle is conveyed through a washing facility or as the vehicle washing system moves or translates with respect to the vehicle. As is known, such automated steps are designed to wash particular portions of the vehicle. Over the years, numerous advances to such washing facilities have expedited and improved the washing process while decreasing the manpower requirements of the facility. One area where improvements have been focused has been with respect to tire washing apparatus or systems.
Accordingly, many current vehicle washing facilities allow patrons to pay an extra fee, in addition to the fee for the vehicle wash, to have a dressing, coating fluid or the like applied to the vehicle tires to make them more visually attractive. For many years, commercially available coatings have been manually applied to vehicle tires to substantially improve their finish and provide a finishing touch. Obviously, manually applying the coating to the vehicle tires is labor intensive and expensive. As will be appreciated, manual application of the tire coating fluid provides various disadvantages, including inconsistent application of the coating and difficulty in controlling the amount of fluid manually applied to each tire.
In an effort to address the issues and deficiencies of manual application of the tire coating fluid, various types of apparatus and methods have been employed for automatically applying such a coating fluid to the tires after they have been cleaned. One such automatic system involves a tire coating apparatus that automatically applies the coating fluid to the vehicle tires. In this system, the coating fluid is applied by spraying the fluid directly to the vehicle tires through a plurality of spray nozzles as the vehicle passes the tire coating apparatus. Because the tire coating occurs after the vehicle wash, the tire coating apparatus is generally located near the exit of the vehicle washing facility. While this system eliminates the step of manually applying the fluid to the tires, it also has disadvantages.
For example, in the type of system where the coating fluid is applied by spray nozzles to the tires, a large quantity of coating fluid is wasted, as the spray nozzles spray the coating fluid to both the tires and wheels, instead of just the tires. This does not take into account any coating fluid that is sprayed beyond the periphery of the tire, which is also a waste. This obviously increases the material cost of the vehicle washing process. Additionally, once the coating fluid is sprayed onto the vehicle tires in this fashion, the tires typically must be wiped down to smooth out any dripping fluid or to remove any excess fluid. This obviously requires labor either on the part of someone at the vehicle washing facility or on the part of the patron after they leave the facility. Additionally, this system does not necessarily reduce material costs as coating fluid is applied to unnecessary areas.
Other systems have been designed that involve applicator pads, which automatically apply the coating fluid to the vehicle tires. With these systems, the coating fluid is applied first to the applicator pads, which consist of cushion-like foam structures. Thereafter, the applicator pads are positioned such that they are intended to contact the vehicle tires as the vehicle passes through the vehicle washing system to apply the coating fluid to the tires. Utilization of these applicator pads to apply the coating fluid to the tires addresses some of the disadvantages present with the other systems that spray fluid directly to the tires.
Further, as mentioned above, because the coating fluid is applied after completion of the washing process, the applicator pads in these systems are located near the end of the conveying system for the vehicle washing system.
Moreover, many of the tire coating mechanism that utilize applicator pads, are intended to reciprocate between a tire contacting position and a retracted position depending upon whether the additional fee for the tire coating process has been paid for by the patron. However, because the vehicles do not always pass down the conveyor in a straight line and often wander to one side of the system or the other, some vehicles that have not paid the additional fee for the separate tire coating process can inadvertently contact the tire coating mechanism with its tires on one side of the vehicle. This can cause the pads one side of the tire coating mechanism to wear prematurely. This also increases the expense of the system and decreases its longevity. This is also undesirable, as some patrons do not want the tire coating service. Moreover, in in-bay washing systems where patrons can drive through the vehicle wash system, which is unattended, patrons sometimes drive through twice favoring the opposite sides of the vehicle in order to receive the tire coating services at no charge.
Therefore, a need exists for a tire cleaning and finishing system that addresses the disadvantages present with existing systems.